Because if you don't mandate insurance, then the entire system falls apart. Sick people need it, healthy people don't want to pay for it. You need everyone to pay to make it affordable.
Insurance shouldn't be used for routine stuff, and people shouldn't be required to have it unless they want it.
And yet each year there are millions of people that receive medical services in excess of their insurance payments (including premiums, copays, etc).
So what was your point?
Anyway, I'm pretty sure they were saying that insurance didn't work, which is manifestly untrue. If they are complaining that it makes healthcare more expensive, well fine, but that is probably more about the principal agent problem than the administrative costs and profits of insurers.
If they're not forced to do this, then they won't and people are forced to stand by and watch as they fall ill and due which is bad for the economy and may already disease, even if you don't care about the moral aspects.
There's little benefit to seperating these things out and obvious downsides to them not being mandated.
And is it really affordable, even for the unhealthy?
Because we live in a society, and in a society people help one another.
I'm arguing against being forced to help others who I have no relationship with, live in far off places, hold different health standards than me, etc.
Believe me, if a family member of close friend needed help with medical expenses, I'd be the first to volunteer.
And don't say 'but charity', we already know charity is massively insufficient.
You're assuming that if the government didn't mandate health insurance, nobody would step in to help those people, which I don't believe is true. Lots of different groups – religious, businesses, municipalities, etc. – could fill that role. Individuals could even give directly to strangers in need through something like https://donorsee.com/.
No, the assumption is that if government mandated dollars stopped coming in, voluntary contributions wouldn't make up the difference. And that seems pretty obvious to anyone who pays attention to the political dialogue. Look at the Republicans who believe Obamacare is too costly. Their sole goal is to have less of their own dollars subsidize the sick.
That's a very strong assumption, and I see no reason to believe its true.
Besides healthcare costs are lower in countries where the government intervenes more than ours does disproving the point.
Also, source for your second assertion?
It's well established, just google it.
The OECD publishes copious statistics on healthcare expenditures, access, quality, and outcomes: http://www.oecd.org/health/health-data.htm
Now before you go and doomsay about all sorts of discrimination happening based on race, gender, sexuality, etc., I'd argue that lots of institutions wouldn't discriminate on those factors. Case in point: most of the major tech companies. And if one did, would you really want to be associated with them and/or have them paying for your healthcare?
The ones that have recently faced age discrimination suits, criticism for the lack of diversity in their employees, and a whole range of reports of terrible conditions in their manufacturing plants? For some bizarre reason, I'm sceptical.
>And if one did, would you really want to be associated with them and/or have them paying for your healthcare
When compared to dying or living with severe health problems, absolutely. This entire thing is about unexpected healthcare costs, I may not have the ability to shop around for the most ethical choice.
I understand what you're saying with "the ability to discriminate is important," but free discrimination has led to the trampling of human rights repeatedly in history.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwzBJF5Q7Vw#t=3m29s
This is Dan Ariely describing "The public goods game" and the instability of 'cheating'. Cheating in scare quotes because the conclusion stands -- in fact is enhanced -- even when the 'defect' choice is regarded as a choice that members of society are free to take (in fact that is the case he discusses).
How is that any difference from defense, law enforcement, fire protection, or property rights standards?
Instead, it hopes dogmatically that other moral values will be met as a side effect of following this one.
It's good to know that you're against your tax money being used for the most expensive military in the world.
Over the course of time, everyone falls into both categories; this idea that there are healthy people is silly, everyone's health fails eventually and often randomly. Healthy is a temporary state. Everyone should contribute so everyone is covered when they become the unhealthy, as they all will.
Better to pay a little bit all of the time than to pay nothing and be unable to afford a giant medical bill that hits you all at once. This is why everyone should pay all of the time, then there's enough money to cover the every changing subset of people, which will eventually include you, who are sick.
That some people in society look at the circumstances of their birth and post-hoc reason that they don't want universal healthcare because it wouldn't have benefitted them is not the point really.
Incorrect, everyone gets sick to the same eventual degree: death. You will require medical care.
> or I simply want to take a chance that I'll remain healthy
No one remains healthy, period, everyone gets sick, everyone.
You could be the healthiest person in the world and get punched by someone who gives you an expensive disease through blood contact; you could randomly get cancer at any age no matter how healthy you think you are. So this notion that you think you should pay less is based on a naive understanding of how health actually works; you cannot predict the future. You could be disabled tomorrow through no fault of your own. As such, the system must be designed to consider that everyone will be sick at some point and most people will be healthy most of the time, everyone pays and the sick are covered, problem solved for everyone. Social medicine works better than any other approach, this is a fact proven around the world. Those objecting to it are doing so on ideological grounds, not on rational ones.
How do you justify those whose property isn't on fire paying for firefighters?
If I don't want to protect against my house burning down, why should I pay for it? And before you go and say, "because your neighbor's house could burn down too", they could choose to pay for firefighters and have them come out to douse my house in defense of their own.
Good to see you support others taking on your risk. This is the essence of universal healthcare.